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British & Irish Lions
• What did the South Africans ever do for us?
Ireland Rugby
Guts & Determination…
Ireland have it in spades, and as I said – maybe, just maybe the underdog role suits them that much better!
What we witnessed in the second half, was nothing short of a remarkable comeback – something we’ve become good at with France!
26-6 down in the 50th minute we could have been buried, and Clerc & Heymans’ could have been running the bulldozer and wearing the hard hats.
A penalty try, a David Wallace try and a Ronan O’Gara took us to within spitting distance, before we took the ball wide on their line and the French ran it into touch (why we didn’t keep it in hand is a question for Monday morning). France had hung on for a 26-21 victory on their grand-slam course – but it was clearly a get out jail card for the French.
After a poor first half, whatever Eddie said at half time had an effect:
‘I feel France got out of jail,’ he said.
‘At 26-6, weaker individuals would have walked away and assumed it was over. But we kept believing we could win the game.
‘We came back, kept our composure as a team, and we deserved better at the end of the day.
‘It told me there is integrity in this team, that they are all honest workers who give 110% in a green shirt.
‘We were unfortunate and I thought we played really well.’
O’Sullivan went onto comment on those tense last five minutes, where some of us lost our voices:
‘I think we did all the right things, and the players were aware the clock was running down.
‘We were trying to get the right field position, but we also tried to make France defend because we knew they were struggling. But we just couldn’t finish it off.’
It appears O’Sullivan isn’t the only one screaming in the dressing room, O’Driscoll has refused to reveal what fly-half O’Gara said to the team at half time, but said:
‘We really felt we owed ourselves a performance and the coach a performance.
‘He has stuck by us, because we didn’t deliver in September and October. That was the one thing we spoke about most this week, and I think we delivered in spades.
‘When you lose a game, the initial feeling is disappointment. But when I think about it more, the overriding feeling now is huge pride in the team.’
Marc Lievremont was delighted with the way his team performed, but well aware that the same as two years ago, they were punished for their mistakes as Ireland came back strong for the second 40. His early replacements in the pack, probably led to Irelands resurgence.
Where do we go from here? Back to Dublin, to Croke in two weeks time to face Scotland an built of nothing short of an heroic performance from this Ireland side.